


no visitors.

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Patrician & Clerk [21]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Age Difference, Comfort/Angst, Loyalty, M/M, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 19:17:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17924747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: “No visitors,” Vimes says, with satisfaction.Hislop scowls, his cheerful features darkening.





	no visitors.

**Author's Note:**

> Had a request for [overprotective Drumknott](https://dictionarywrites.dreamwidth.org/27552.html?thread=97440#cmt97440).

 “I need to see him,” Hislop growls. Vimes crosses his arms over his chest, and he looks Lord Hislop, a very irritable man of forty-five, in the face. He’s from Pseudopolis, but had come back to Ankh-Morpork in the past few years when his brother had died, leaving him the lordship, and he is… _Prickly_.

The Patrician’s injury hadn’t actually been all that severe, but Vetinari requires rest nonetheless, and in the meantime, a request had been made[1] that the Watch guard the Patrician themselves, so that’s exactly what’s happening. As for this business of insisting he _stay_ in the hospital…

Vimes is aware, distantly, that there is likely a scheme afoot, that Vetinari is accomplishing something in tying up the hospital with extra security, but what it is, he’s got no damned idea, and no real want to know.

Some stuff just isn’t worth his salt. _Hislop_ , fortunately, is well within his remit.

“No visitors,” Vimes says, with satisfaction.

Hislop scowls, his cheerful features darkening.

Behind Vimes, the door opens almost silently, and clicks shut.

“Is there a problem, Watch Commander Vimes?” asks Drumknott from Vimes’ shoulder.

“No, Mr Drumknott,” Vimes says. “Lord Hislop here was just leaving.”

“I was _not_ ,” Hislop hisses. “You, Drumknott, I need to see the Patrician _immediately._ ”

“Oh?” He doesn’t say anything else. He just stands there, his eyebrows slightly raised, his expression expectant. Hislop stares him down, but it doesn’t seem to have any affect on Drumknott whatsoever, even as the clerk takes a delicate step forward, so that he’s in line with Vimes.

“ _Yes_ ,” Hislop snaps, finally.

“About?”

“None of your _business_.”

“May I take a message?”

“No!”                                   

“Ah, but I regret, Lord Hislop, Lord Vetinari is not taking visitors at this time.” Drumknott’s tone is almost saccharine, it is so sweet, and Vimes knows this for the warning sign it is: Hislop, apparently, does not.

Hislop steps forward, and Vimes stiffens, but Drumknott moves before he does, and Vimes stares, stunned, as one of Drumknott’s little hands whips at Hislop’s, dragging it forward and _twisting_. Hislop lets out a groan of pain, and Vimes sees his other hand go for a hidden holster.

“Looking for this?” Drumknott asks, his voice dripping with honey. The short blade glitters in his other hand, too big for his palm.

“You little—”

“Lord Hislop,” Drumknott says softly, and he takes a step closer to the other man. “Pray, consider our situation. What have I to lose, if I killed you right now?” The words are so cold, and so tense with dark emotion, that Vimes is frozen by them, and so is Hislop, his eyes wide, his mouth open and aghast. “My reputation? My work? Why, my _life_ , even? None of that matters much to me.” He must shift the pressure he has on Hislop’s hand, because Hislop hisses in pain. “You are as yet new to Ankh-Morpork, my lord. You have let to learn her… _particular_ rhythms. You would do well to do so, I think.”

“You can’t _do_ this,” Hislop hisses, and then chokes off into a whimpered noise as Drumknott subtly adjusts his grip.

“Can’t I?” Drumknott asks softly, and Vimes watches the terror pass over Hislop’s face, as the understanding drops heavy onto his shoulders. “Would you like to place a wager on that?”

He lets Hislop go, and Hislop all but _lurches_ down the corridor: he spits some insult over his shoulder, but Drumknott doesn’t seem to hear it as he sets the knife down on the side table. Vimes looks at his expression, which is distant, concentrated elsewhere.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Vimes says.

“No,” Drumknott agrees.

“Feel good?” Vimes asks.

“Yes,” Drumknott says. “He’s asleep. He just… fell asleep, mid-conversation. Because of the opium, but…” Vimes looks at Drumknott as the clerk exhales, reaching up and touching the side of his temple with his knuckle, absently rubbing at the skin. He’s got a headache, Vimes supposes. Anybody would. “I thought, in the moment, I thought—”

He stops.

“He’s alright,” Vimes says quietly, and he does something he would never have done, even a few years ago: he reaches out, and he pats Drumknott’s shoulder. It’s a surprisingly hard, muscled shoulder, and he frowns at it.

“He’s getting old,” Drumknott mutters, and he says it with all the bitterness in the world. Vimes doesn’t know what to say in response to that, and so he stays quiet, his palm lingering on Drumknott’s back. “When Mr Lockheed comes, in two hours or so, just let him right in, would you? The door will be locked, but that won’t stop him[2].”

“Lockheed’s the big fella, eyes like a cat?”

“Yes.”

“Alright.”

“I’m going to…” Drumknott exhales, and he looks at Vimes very seriously. “I’m going to get some sleep.”

“With…?”  Vimes looks at Drumknott’s face, at the exhausted bags beneath his eyes, at the drawn-out look. He hadn’t noticed it before, but then, he doesn’t think Drumknott had been showing it. The injustice of it, in the moment, hits him as hard as one of those damned trains: Drumknott deserves better than this, he thinks. He’s loyal not just to a fault, but to a _trench_ , to a _canyon_ , and the only thing he gets, for working like he does… is Vetinari. Doesn’t seem like a fair trade to Vimes, doesn’t seem fair at all. Not for the first time, it makes him angry, but… What can he do? “Alright,” he says. “He’s gonna be fine, lad.” He doesn’t know why he says it. Maybe it’s the look in Drumknott’s eyes, tired and desperate; maybe it’s the anger, trying to make its way out, and twisting into sympathy as it does.

“No,” Drumknott says, with world-weary honesty. “He isn’t. Not in the end. But thank you, Vimes, for your empty words of comfort.”

Vimes smiles at him. After a second’s pause, Drumknott smiles wanly back, and he steps back into the hospital room, the door locking with a click behind him.

Vimes puts his heels together, raises his chin, and puts his gaze forward again.  

 

[1] The passive voice is quite necessary here. The request had not been made by Vetinari himself, nor by Drumknott, nor indeed, apparently, by one of his clerks, and _yet_ , the request had _been_ made. By who (or by _whom_ , as Drumknott would say) is not for Vimes to wonder about.

[2] Locked doors have the same sort of effect on Dustin Lockheed as they do on the basic laws of thermodynamics. That is to say, none whatsoever.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up [on Dreamwidth](https://dictionarywrites.dreamwidth.org/2287.html). Requests always open.


End file.
